


but ever since i found you (a little light is breaking through)

by somniatoressinespe



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, SO, Temporary Character Death, but it's brief, enjoy, picks up after season 2 ends more or less, this was born out of the burning need for the two of them to just TALK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 18:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somniatoressinespe/pseuds/somniatoressinespe
Summary: “So…” Karolina trails off sitting down beside her.Nico barely hides a grimace at the face her girlfriend is making. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”“It was… difficult not to hear. You were loudly berating Chase.”“I’m sorry for that,” Nico groans, hiding her face into her hands. “Did you also hear the very first bit?” she whispers, already mortified enough to last her a century.“The one about how we don’t communicate anymore?” Karolina nudges her softly, so reassuring and kind it feels almost like an apology and Nico might just die here on the spot, “Not that we ever were very good about it if we’re being honest.”or "nico and karolina finally have a proper talk"
Relationships: Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Comments: 20
Kudos: 315





	but ever since i found you (a little light is breaking through)

**Author's Note:**

> i swear this was supposed to be only 3k

It had been nine days, fourteen hours and approximately thirty-seven minutes since Karolina had been taken.  
  
It has been five days, four hours, and approximately twelve minutes since Nico had managed to bring her back.  
  
(And Chase, too. Even if Nico doesn’t know how to feel about the fact, not yet at least.)  
  
In that time, Nico has managed to: repair some of the most threatening holes in the walls of the Hostel with her Staff, go grocery shopping- if you could classify the mix of scavenging and dumpster diving she’s been doing as that- fall off of her couch-bed in the middle of the night more times she could count on one hand, and worry.  
  
In that time, Karolina has managed to: not look Nico in the eye for more than two seconds, not eat more than half of anything Nico brought her, not say a single word to Nico.  
  
(That’s why Nico is worried, mostly.)  
  
Karolina won’t eat, won’t sleep, won’t talk to her or anybody else at the Hostel- and to be honest, Nico doesn’t blame her much on that part because, _really,_ who should Karolina talk to?  
  
Should she open up to her murderous, pregnant mother, or her girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, or maybe the boy who left them in the clutches of their parents, or... Molly- who seems like the best option, really.  
  
And Nico doesn’t know what to do- apart from agonizing over it day and night, apparently.  
  
She’s not used to Karolina being so unforthcoming with her emotions, isn’t used to Karolina not taking care of herself, and Nico is worried sick. Usually, _she’s_ the evasive, emotionally stunted one, not Karolina. She doesn’t know what to do with their role reversed, apart from letting Karolina keep pretending everything is fine.  
  
Actually, she’s found that she’s gaining a new perspective on their- Karolina’s and her- relationship. And really, Karolina is even more saintly than she looks- which is saying a lot- to be able to endure Nico’s temper without a complaint.  
  
So, Nico grits her teeth and bears it- she owes this and much, much more to Karolina.  
  
In these last five days, four hours and approximately sixteen minutes: Alex had been hiding behind half-closed doors; Chase had been living in the crooks of the Hostel, trying to atone for his sins; Molly had been hitting the town whenever she thought Nico wasn’t looking in search of her sister; Gert had been missing in action; and Karolina had been silent.  
  
Well, she is. Talking. Still saying good morning, and please, and thank you, but shutting down for anything longer than that.  
  
Not that Nico blames her for not wanting to talk.  
  
She has spent more than a full week in the hands of that bastard of a psychopath she calls father, in that stupid glowing cylinder filled with the fake memories and the time loops and she doesn’t know what other nightmares since Karolina won’t talk about it.  
  
(No, it’s more like she blames herself. For not getting to her sooner, for letting her be captured in the first place, for not being enough once again.)  
  
So, Nico is trying to be a good girlfriend about it.  
  
(She’s not just ignoring the problem, she’s not.)  
  
Trying to just give Karolina the space and time she obviously believes she needs and obviously wants, but it’s hard- because Nico lamps her and lumps her and loves her and she just wants her to be alright.  
  
It certainly doesn’t make it easier every time she pushes the door to _their_ room- kinda, mostly, technically still theirs, still Nico’s- open and finds Xavin there. No, it doesn’t make it easier. Just a lot worse. Because Xavin pulls the worse behaviours out of Nico, and god, who could have seen it coming?  
  
Nico Minoru is _jealous._  
  
The most juvenile, unjustifiable feeling she could feel after everything she and Karolina went through.  
  
Because she trusts Karolina.  
  
She knows Xavin’s obsession with her is unrequited and unwanted and obviously nothing is ever coming out of it- no matter what crazy prophecy gets projected into her girlfriend’s brain- but Nico can’t help but wonder if maybe Xavin is... better suited for Karolina than she is.  
  
After all, it’s not exactly true Karolina doesn’t talk to any of them.  
  
(She _does_ talk to Xavin.)  
  
And Nico is being unfair- and jealous, again.  
  
She sighs and closes the door slowly, hoping Karolina won’t notice the intrusion. She goes back downstairs into the mouldy excuse of a kitchen they’re using. She kicks a fallen piece of plaster and sits at the table, burying her head into her crossed arms.  
  
She doesn’t get to brood for long, though, Alex appearing suddenly in the doorway like the ghost he’s resembling more and more lately. If she had any space left to be worried about anything other than Karolina, Alex would make the cut right below Gert.  
  
(Gert.)  
  
(Who’s still missing.)  
  
(God, she _needs_ to find out where she’s been taken.)  
  
She lets out a long sigh, pushing her hands into her hair.  
  
But maybe Alex doesn’t deserve having her worrying about him, because he decides to start the conversation by bringing Karolina’s situation up.  
  
“You should try and talk to Karolina,” he says, sitting down next to her, business as always- and she would have maybe, _maybe,_ accepted this, if it were just born out of concern, but Alex has to ruin it with his next words. “We don’t know what Victor, Jonah, or whatever, put her through, and maybe she could give us a hint or some advice…”  
  
“Alex,” she warns in a low voice.  
  
“We have to be prepared, Nico,” he continues, and with each word, she feels more and more irritation creeping under her skin, “You can’t ignore this.”  
  
“Am not,” she grumbles interrupting him, because really, she’s _not._  
  
Alex doesn’t even register it, too deep in his rant to realize how deep the grave he’s digging for himself really is, how close Nico is from snapping back. “And maybe if you just _talked_ to her--”  
  
That’s the straw.  
  
“Oh, _talk_ to her,” the chair frame creaks where Nico’s locked her hands around, and she forces herself to relax, fingers uncurling with the sting of splinters. “Talk to her,” Nico says again, “How didn’t I figure _that_ out? I’ll just waltz in there and _talk_ to her, and she’ll tell me what’s wrong and we’ll talk strategy on how to bring down her _father._ Of course. How didn’t I think of that?”  
  
Nico knows she’s being nasty and that she’s using Alex as a punch-bag, but she can’t stop herself, the words flowing out of her mouth like arrows. “Talk to her? What an excellent piece of advice, Alex, I don’t know what we’d do without our fearless leader and his impeccable advice and--”  
  
“Nico, that’s enough,” Chase chimes in, emerging from the garage- probably only brought here by her shouting, since he tends to bury himself there, and maybe she’d even be worried about his self-exile if she wasn’t still so fucking upset with him.

He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she scrolls it off with an angry shove.  
  
“You want a piece too, pretty boy? Maybe you have another brilliant line from your coach you want to share with us?” she stands up furiously from the chair, hair whipping around her like a tempest, “You left us! And you’re only back here because Molly didn’t want to leave your unconscious body behind in that fucking box. Don’t believe for a second you’re off the hook about that.”  
  
Chase looks like he had been punched in the gut with each of Nico’s words, and Nico tries, she tries, to remember the boy he is- the boy he was. And it almost works, at least until he opens his mouth again.  
  
“Nico, you know I left you guys for a reason.”  
  
Another wave of anger surges against her ribs painfully.  
  
“Yes! Betraying us in the second it took for you to get to your parents. The whole reason why we were separated in the first place was because you told us to go into that forest in the first place!”  
  
Chase’s face splits into a remorseful grimace. “I didn’t know they would hurt you!”  
  
“They killed kids! For years! And if you believed for one second our parents had anything in their minds but their own self-interest, you’re even more stupid than I thought.”  
  
“That’s not fair!”  
  
“Isn’t it?” she drawls out, taking step after menacing step towards him, “Tell me then, where’s Gert? Do you even remember who she is? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re missing her, too.”  
  
She feels a hand on her shoulder, turning with a snarl, and only stops seething the moment she sees it’s just Molly- only Molly could never be _just_ anything.  
  
“Nico.”  
  
It’s weird how a single word can bring you back to the present, or how a fifteen-year-old can make you realize you’re acting like a child.  
  
(Some part of her wants to scream nonetheless, because, against all odds in this new terrifying world, she’s still seventeen, still a child who bears a much too heavy weight on her shoulders.)  
  
She sighs ashamed and squeezes Molly’s hand.  
  
“I’m sorry for shouting, Molls. I’ll be outside if you need me.”  
  
She storms out of the kitchen, lifting her hand to claim the Staff of One to her.  
  
It flies to her faster than the last time she had tried that trick, and she knows she should be worried about the fact, but she doesn’t care.

She straps it in place on her back and gets out of the Hostel wishing she had a door to slam shut, climbing up the hill until the only thing she can see is the green of the grass, the blue of the sky, and L.A. stretching out in front of her.  
  
She tears off a patch of grass with a groan.  
  
She had never dealt well with pent up anger, but Chase didn’t deserve her words. Probably. Possibly. Neither did Alex. Nico had made another mess. Lately, it seems she can’t do anything right, not with Alex, not with Chase, certainly not with Karolina.  
  
She closes her eyes, laying down in the grass with another groan.  
  
Everything feels _wrong._  
  
Everything had felt wrong since Karolina had taken off running and Nico hadn’t followed her since she had watched her chase away those brain scrambler drones, since she had gone to confront her parents.  
  
Not that Nico remembers that afternoon. Not exactly.  
  
There’s a blackout in the last minutes of her fight with her parents. She remembers staring them down and then finding herself on the run through the streets of L.A.  
  
(She has this… image of her father bleeding on the floor, a piece of glass stuck in his throat, choking on his own blood, and she doesn’t know if it’s fake or not. She doesn’t think she wants to know.)  
  
It feels familiar too, this void in her memory, like the one she has of fighting the SWAT team- first falling, then coming to in Karolina’s arms, the Staff of One limp in Alex’s hands, AWOL and his squad nowhere to be seen.  
  
If Gert was here, she’d probably tell her it’s because of trauma- her brain trying to shut that part of her memory down because she can’t deal with the pain that comes with it. But Gert isn’t here, and Nico is afraid it might be something else blocking her memories.  
  
Something to do with the Staff and the black haunting her periphery vision now and again, something to do with the Staff and the things it seems to be whispering in her ear, something to do with the darkness she feels swirling deep inside her.  
  
She adjusts the straps going over her shoulders absent-mindedly.  
  
Now if _Karolina_ was here, she’d tell her that her darkness is part of her and that she shouldn’t be afraid of it.  
  
(Not that she’s so sure how much she actually believes of all that ‘the darkness is you’ stuff. She knows Karolina was coming from a place of love, but it doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t want to be defined by that part of her life, by those tragedies. She wants to be more than that.)  
  
(She knows she is.)  
  
Only Karolina is not here. Probably busy somewhere whispering in Xavin’s ear.  
  
And she’s being unfair again.  
  
Fantastic.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
She shoots up, locking eyes with the sole object of her thoughts since she had kissed her for the first time on that strange night.  
  
“Hi.”  
  
“So…” Karolina trails off sitting down beside her.  
  
Nico barely hides a grimace at the face her girlfriend is making. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”  
  
“It was… difficult not to hear. You _were_ loudly berating Chase.”  
  
“I’m sorry for that,” Nico groans, hiding her face into her hands. “Did you also hear the very first bit?” she whispers, already mortified enough to last her a century.  
  
“The one about how we don’t communicate anymore?” Karolina nudges her softly, so reassuring and kind it feels almost like an apology and Nico might just die here on the spot, “Not that we ever were very good about it if we’re being honest.”  
  
_Which is fair,_ Nico agrees in her mind, _even if most of the secrets were yours._  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
_Unfair._  
  
“That’s a yes, then.”  
  
“Nico,” Karolina starts, before hesitating and closing her mouth with a shrug. And that’s been the fashion of their talks lately, Karolina retreating and Nico pushing.  
  
“What?”  
  
(Well, in the spirit of being fair, she has always kind of been the one who ends up pushing. She has never been known for leaving things well enough alone- always picking at the scabs on her knees until they bled dry, and the ones on her heart weren’t any better.)  
  
“I don’t want to fight,” she says.  
  
“Fighting requires talking, so.”  
  
“Nico…”  
  
“We need to talk about your suicide tendencies, Karolina. I can’t have you running towards danger every time like it doesn’t matter if you get hurt.”  
  
“They’re not suicide tendencies!” Karolina defends, but her tone is already defeated, and it kills Nico, physically kills her, that Karolina seems to have lost most of her fire when it comes to her- to them. Or maybe it’s because there’s more than a kernel of truth in Nico’s words- and that hurts a lot more.  
  
She curls into herself. “Hero complex, whatever.”  
  
She avoids looking into her eyes, digging her fingers in the soft earth instead.  
  
Because Karolina was beautiful and unbelievably kind and always hell-bent on doing the right thing, and for as much Nico loved her for that, she also hated the fact that her girlfriend always ran head-first into danger without stopping to think once how that would affect her well-being, or Nico’s mental health.  
  
“Nico,” her awfully brave girlfriend says, so softly Nico loses all of her fight.  
  
She doesn’t want to fight.  
  
She just wants her to be alright.  
  
“Karolina.”  
  
Karolina takes her hand, bringing it to her lips with a reverence Nico had never, _never_ witnessed from anyone before- it always makes her feel special how Karolina touches her as if each touch was something sacred, something to treasure. “I came back.”  
  
“You took your time,” she says, tears stinging the back of her eyes.  
  
Karolina presses another kiss to her hand, this time to the spot in between her wrist and her palm. It burns in the best kind of way. “But I came back.”  
  
Only that’s not the problem at all now, is it?  
  
It’s the how she came back that keeps Nico up at night, that makes Nico leave her bed in the middle of the night to open the door to her girlfriend’s room and reassuring herself that yes, she had brought her back, that Karolina was fine and asleep and safe.  
  
“I had to lift your limp body out of a box,” Nico whispers, trying to push the memories of the day down, to bury them under the years of trauma she already has. She’s sure any therapist could have a field day with all of her issues.  
  
“And I came back,” Karolina repeats, this time putting Nico’s hand against her chest, over her heart- she can feel her heartbeat, drumming strong and alive against her fingers, but somehow it’s still not enough.  
  
“What if you hadn’t?”  
  
“But I did. And you got me back.”  
  
Nico shakes her head, taking her hand back, and curling it close to her chest- as if to reassure her body that her other heart, too, is still beating. “I couldn’t-- I can’t, _I can’t_ lose you like I lost Amy.”  
  
“I know,” Karolina wraps her arms around her and Nico collapses in her hold like a puppet with cut strings, kissing her temple gently as Nico sinks more and more into the embrace, “And for all that matters, I didn’t mean to be captured.”  
  
She huffs a laugh into her neck. “Yeah, I sure hope you didn’t.”  
  
“Don’t quote vines at me.”  
  
“Don’t run into danger to save everyone every time we face some form of evil,” she counters back, rubbing her nose in the soft spot where her neck meets her shoulder.  
  
“I can’t promise that.”  
  
“I know. But do it anyway?”  
  
Karolina lifts her chin up, tilting her head just so, before bending down to kiss her. It’s the first they’ve shared since Karolina had been back, Nico realizes, and she doesn’t know how that’s possible, how Nico hadn’t kissed her the moment she saw her again.  
  
(It probably had something to do with the fact they had to run for their lives the instant right after that, but five days had passed since then, so really, Nico has no excuses.)  
  
Nico sighs into the kiss, burying a hand into Karolina’s hair. She lets herself get lost into it for a few seconds more before pulling away. “Don’t distract me with kisses. We need to talk about this.”  
  
“That sounds like break-up talk,” Karolina jokes, twisting one of Nico’s strand of hair behind her ear before resting her hand there, her warmth seeping into Nico’s skin.  
  
“It’s not. It’s an ‘I’m your girlfriend and I’m terrified of watching you being taken by our murderous parents’ kind of talk.”  
  
Karolina drops the hand from where it’s resting against her cheek. “Nico, you know I can’t promise you I won’t do what’s necessary to keep everyone safe.”  
  
“Why can’t you just be a coward?” Nico asks, letting out a small choked laugh, only half-joking.  
  
“It wouldn’t be me, and you wouldn’t--”  
  
“I wouldn’t?” Nico inches on when it’s obvious Karolina has no intention to continue her sentence.  
  
“You have to trust me,” she says instead of answering, “Don’t you trust me?”  
  
“I do!” Nico defends, grabbing onto Karolina’s arm for a second too long to be anything other than the declaration of affection it is, “Of course I do. I trust you. I just don’t trust our parents.”  
  
“That makes two of us. But I have all these…. these _powers,_ Nico, and I can’t just not do something with them. I can’t.”  
  
“You could use them to warm your girlfriend at night?” she tries, cringing the moment the words have fallen off her lips. She sounds like _Chase._ Ugh.  
  
“You’re plenty warm on your own. Or well, you’re certainly hot enough,” Karolina jokes back, trying to coax a smile out of her.  
  
Nico makes the conscious choice not to focus on the second bit.  
  
“I’m not warm.”  
  
She’s not cold either, though.  
  
People always thought so after meeting her, but she wasn’t. She was guarded, sure, but it wasn’t because she was unfeeling, quite the opposite actually. It was born out of self-preservation. She felt too much and too deep and too quick, she had to defend herself somehow.  
  
And, well. Cold did its job well.  
  
Only she’s never managed to be cold with Karolina, some part of her always aching towards her, always straining to be seen by her- a part she didn’t quite understand until Karolina had kissed her in that hallway with all the courage that only the end of your world as you know it can bring.  
  
She’s certain it has something to do in the way Karolina looks at her, in the way Nico catches her stare at her sometimes.  
  
People just don’t look at each other like that- not at Nico, at least, never like that. And Nico had let it crawl under her skin, let it make her want things she probably didn’t deserve, with a person she’s pretty sure she never will.  
  
(She’s still going to try, though. She will spend her whole life trying to deserve someone who’s starlight itself.)  
  
“I know,” Karolina says- and Nico knows that she understands what she means and loves her some more just for that- hand inching closer to where Nico’s own laid in the grass, “But you are with me.”  
  
“But I am with you,” she agrees with a small sigh, “And look where that got me.”  
  
Karolina finally slips her hand into hers and it feels simultaneously like a prayer and its answer all at once. “With a beautiful girlfriend watching the sun go down on a hill near the Griffith?”  
  
Nico turns to look at her, and for a moment she’s so overwhelmed by the beautiful girlfriend by her side- with reds and oranges crowning her head and oceans in her eyes- she almost forgets she’s meant to say something mean back.  
  
(Nico lamps her, and lumps her, and loves her. She bits her tongue so hard, she’s afraid she’ll draw blood.)  
  
Thankfully, she snaps out of it.  
  
“Sure, let’s go with that,” she deadpans scrolling her shoulders with all the mock carelessness she can muster.  
  
“Bitch,” Karolina says, but she’s laughing so hard Nico just knows she did something right.  
  
She leans into her and kisses her feather-light- only they’re laughing so much it’s more like pressing their smiles together than kissing- and for a second everything feels right in the world. “You love it.”  
  
(She ignores the itch she feels in her throat at the word love.)  
  
Karolina shakes her head as if Nico had gotten it all wrong. “I love _you.”_  
  
It manages to catch her so off guard she almost tumbles down the hill, the only thing that saves her is Karolina’s hand still in hers, anchoring her in place.  
  
“I don’t think I said it back last time. No. That’s not true,” she rectifies quickly, quietly, fervently, “I _know_ I didn’t say it back. I didn’t want to say it back in case--”  
  
She doesn’t end the sentence, not that there is any need, the words hanging around them like a rope.  
  
In case we didn’t both make it back.  
  
And she’s right, because for as much Nico had agonized over what could have as well been their last conversation _ever_ in the weeks separating their reunion, she doesn’t know how she would have survived if Karolina had said it back when Nico couldn’t kiss her for hours in answer, couldn’t even say it properly to her in the first place.  
  
“And I didn’t want that to be our first time saying it, to say it because of-- Whatever. I don’t even know if you’d mean it now that we aren’t about to get screwed epically by our parents. But I do. Love you, I mean. I hope that’s okay.”  
  
And it’s more than okay, because Nico has already loved her forever- she’s sure of it, she’s sure she was born with this love already burnt in her veins, in her lungs, and she’s sure she will be born with the same love in her next life.

Honestly, she’s so far gone that even the possibility of going back is absurd.  
  
“You maybe want to breathe?” Nico asks, because she’s an asshole whose mouth never manages to work right.  
  
“Don’t be a bitch.”  
  
“Too late. You already said you loved me. No take-backs.”  
  
“Now I might.”  
  
“Nope, too late. You’re stuck with me.”  
  
“God, the horror.”  
  
“I know,” Nico agrees, leaning in close, “However will you manage…”  
  
Nico kisses her, pushing her down into the grass until the only thing she could touch was Karolina, until the only words she could think of saying were her name.  
  
Her hand travels up and down her sides, mapping the already well-known path of Karolina’s hips, her arms, her thighs. Karolina pushes up against her, putting a hand behind her back and sealing their bodies together, the Staff of One digging almost painfully in her back.  
  
She shivers.  
  
Then she hears a platter. Then another, closer this time. Then she feels an icy drop against her back. And then another. And another. Picking up speed, fat, wet drops picker all around them, drenching them to the bones in seconds.  
  
Nico doesn’t stop the kiss until Karolina herself does, laughing against her lips before finally pushing her away. “We’re going to get sick.”  
  
“It’s a summer storm in California, I sincerely doubt that.”  
  
Karolina looks pensive for a second before going to her feet with a bright smile, bringing Nico with her.  
  
“Then wanna fly in it?”  
  
“In the storm?”  
  
“Yeah, I mean, might as well. We’re already soaked, and it’s really fun,” Karolina leans in real close, eyes twinkling, rain bouncing all around her hair like a burning halo, “C’ mon! We didn’t give it a try since--”  
  
Since we went down that hole trying to save your alien family, Nico finishes the sentence for her, since I killed your father.  
  
“…Sure. How do you want me?”  
  
Karolina flushes a deep pink, and Nico would have found it cute, were she not busy blushing bright red herself. Karolina tries to speak, but a hoarse croak is what ends up coming out of her mouth.  
  
“Yeah. Like how do I fly?” Nico rushes to add before she manages to screw it up even more.  
  
It takes a second for Karolina to go back to her normal colour, until the embarrassment leaves her face completely, replaced by a twinkle in her eyes.  
  
“Keep your head straight, and your shoulder hunched, bend over slightly…” Karolina starts to list off, and Nico plays along, Nico adjusting her stance until the laughter in Karolina’s eyes manifests itself in the form of shaking shoulders from the effort of keeping a straight face.  
  
She straightens out with a huff, mock pout already in place. “You’re making fun of me.”  
  
Nico makes as if to go away but Karolina stops her with an arm around her waist, spinning her until she collided against her girlfriend’s chest, boot’s heels digging in the ground that’s already working his way towards properly muddy.  
  
“No, don’t go. I’m sorry.”  
  
Nico shakes her head, droplets of water falling all around her. She had never been good at being angry at Karolina, even if it was just pretend.  
  
“So how do you do it?”  
  
“It’s easy,” Karolina says, taking Nico’s hands from where they’re resting against her hips bringing them to her neck, while lacing hers around her waist, “You just hold on,”  
  
She can do that.  
  
Then Karolina lights up in rainbows and lifts them up and off the ground. A squeaky sound escapes Nico’s lips- a sound she will deny for all of her lifetime she had ever made- and Karolina laughs, the bell-like sound getting swallowed by another clap of thunder.  
  
“You’re sure the lightning won’t hit us?” she yells over the wind.  
  
“No clue,” Karolina shouts back before speeding upwards and upwards and right into the icy rain.  
  
“What do you mean no clue?! Karolina? Karolina!”  
  
Karolina’s answer is to fly even faster, before swooping into a death roll that makes Nico hide a scream against Karolina’s chest. She thinks Karolina is laughing, her chest shaking against hers in small bursts, but she startles when she realizes that she is laughing too, their voices mixing with the storm.  
  
When Karolina finally comes to a stop, they’re floating about sixty feet over the ground, the rain falling around them a blur of motion.  
  
She’s not cold.  
  
Not when Karolina is fired up and wrapped around her.

Not when the space between them couldn’t possibly be classified as a gap by anybody watching.

Not when the world falls away with the rain, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but the two of them, floating over the Griffith Observatory.  
  
Nico tears her eyes away from Karolina, watching the drowning earth beneath them, the stray rays of sunshine ripping the clouds, Karolina’s lights bouncing all around them like little pockets of rainbows.  
  
It’s beautiful.  
  
_She’s_ beautiful.  
  
(Karolina is so damn beautiful she makes her heart ache.)  
  
So, she tells her.  
  
“You look breath-taking,” Nico whispers in her ear, barely hearing herself through the rushing blood in her ears, her heart beating like a drum in her chest, the thunder booming around them.  
  
“What?” she laughs, glowing brighter than a supernova.  
  
“I’m serious,” Nico says, a smile splitting her face in two automatically the moment she hears her laugh, “You look as if you were dropped by the universe into my life from some far-away galaxy.”  
  
Karolina raises one, glowy eyebrow, and Nico realizes all at once, that her girlfriend _was_ literally dropped in her life from some far-away galaxy.  
  
(Does Karolina even count as an extra-terrestrial, if she was raised as a human? How does that work? Will she have to apply to some kind of human citizenship to stay here?)  
  
So she can understand why Karolina looks more than a bit unimpressed by that line. She’s a literal glowing rainbow alien. It’s a bad line if she takes that into account.  
  
(It’s a bad line regardless if Nico were to be honest. But she’s in love, and she thinks she’s allowed to say stuff like that while her girlfriend carries her in her arms, while a storm lashes around them.)  
  
“You look as if you were cast from them. From the stars,” she continues- because in for a penny in for a pound, right?  
  
“Because I glow,” Karolina deadpans slowly, grin still in place.  
  
Nico shakes her head. “Because you’re ethereal.”  
  
“Who gave you a thesaurus?” she teases her with a lazy grin, and Nico’s sure she’d nudge her weren’t she holding them both sixty feet in the air.  
  
“I actually got one from the book shop. With this ‘only one spell for each word’ thingy I figured I’d have to get creative.”  
  
“You’re so amazing,” Karolina says, voice so filled with love it makes her blush.  
  
“You’re making us float into the sky above L.A.”  
  
“You’re better,” Karolina whispers and Nico brushes her nose against her cheek, before kissing her properly.  
  
There’s a light flashing behind her closed eyelids, and Nico is unsure whether it’s Karolina herself or the storm ringing around them. She gets her answer when a boom resonates in her ears. She feels Karolina’s lips curve around the kiss.  
  
(The sound could still just be Nico’s heart, though.)  
  
It’s astonishing, how in between all of their tragedies, there’s still time for this, time for love. Time to share a kiss in the moments between lightning and thunder.  
  
And it’s beautiful.  
  
**  
  
As all things beautiful, it’s over before she can have time to savour it, and as quickly as it had come the storm passes, Karolina floating them both back to the top of the hill, grin never fading once from her lips.  
  
(It’s a welcome sight, after the last few days.)  
  
They race down to the hidden entrance, feet slipping on the wet grass, arriving there panting and out of breath.  
  
Nico can feel the mud clinging to her shoes, and how her clothes stick to her body uncomfortably, and she’s pretty sure her braids have all fallen down from where they had been carefully pinned.  
  
Karolina isn’t faring any better, water pooling at her feet and long blond hair so drenched by water they almost look brown. There’s a speck of mud on her face, right under her cheekbone, and Nico reaches out to brush it away letting her hand linger on the spot.  
  
(It’s a statement- either to Karolina’s naturally breath-taking beauty or Nico’s own love-sickness- that Karolina makes it work. And when she smiles down at her, Nico forgets her own name, and how to breathe, and how to do anything but love her, love her,_ love her_.)  
  
Karolina watches her with kind eyes and Nico feels herself blush to the bone.  
  
She drops the hand and takes a step back.  
  
Her heart stutters in her chest painfully- like it couldn’t bear to be even so little away from its owner- and it takes everything in her not to surge forward and kiss her.  
  
(She likes to talk the big talk, but she’s not nearly as in control of herself as she’d like to be, especially around Karolina.)  
  
Only, why shouldn’t she kiss her?  
  
They have much more to talk about, and much more to get through, and much more to heal through, but they also have so so much _time-_ and Nico wants to spend the majority of it lips on lips, skin on skin.  
  
So she steps closer again, tilting her head up and tugging on Karolina’s sleeve until she catches on and leans down, too.  
  
She gets lost in the feeling of Karolina’s lips against hers, shivering when one of Karolina’s icy hand comes to rest under her shirt over the small of her back. Her eyes are closed, but she realizes that Karolina is glowing when warmth starts to spread from her fingers.  
  
She sighs happily against her lips, she feels like the protagonist of one of Chase’s shitty romance novels. She’s surprised by how much she doesn’t care. She’s happy and sappy and in love. And she wants Karolina to know.  
  
“I love you.”  
  
They had been dancing around that word since the start, Nico thinks, both afraid of it being too much, too fast. She’s starting to realize there’s no too much, not with Karolina. Just inevitability.  
  
The smile that splits Karolina’s face is one of the brightest Nico has ever seen, and she brings her girlfriend’s lips down on hers again, letting the love that takes home in her chest fly and meets the one who holds her heart halfway there.  
  
It becomes quickly obvious that Karolina’s laugh and Nico’s grin make it almost impossible to keep kissing. But Nico wasn’t one to be stopped by such small obstacles in life, and she starts peppering small pecks all around her girlfriend’s face. Karolina swats her away half-heartedly, laughter shaking her whole body.  
  
After far too few kisses in Nico’s opinion, Karolina pulls away with a serious face. “We should finish our talk, properly. I didn’t… I want to tell you some stuff. I--”  
  
And Nico can see in her eyes, how much she means it. But they had made enough progress today that Nico doesn’t feel the need to do it in this instant. The dam had been broken, and she knows, Nico knows, deep in her bones, that she and Karolina will be alright. It’s only a matter of when, now.  
  
Because she knows now, that Karolina will come to her in her own time.  
  
(After all, she loves her.)  
  
So, she steals another kiss whispering against her lips a quick “Later,” and kissing her again.  
  
“Later,” Karolina agrees.  
  
**  
  
It’s late when she wakes up.  
  
Much too late to get dinner and much too early to eat breakfast. Which is fine, it’s not like Nico had much of an appetite lately.  
  
Outside is still dark enough, Nico can’t see an inch from her face in the dark of the hallway she’s still sleeping in, safe from two stray rays of moonlight coming through a hole in the roof, lighting the room in soft hues of blue.  
  
She shivers as an icy draft hits the small of her back from even under the heavy blanket- probably coming from one of the holes Nico hadn’t yet managed to close.  
  
Maybe, were she still with Karolina in their shared room, she’d be able to turn around and fall asleep, face buried in her girlfriend’s hair. But as she’s not. So, she’ll resign to find whatever comfort she couldn’t get from sleep in a cup of tea.  
  
She steps carefully down the stairs, wincing at the creak of the old wood at her every step. It’s a wonder, she muses, that Old Lace hadn’t crashed the stairs with its weight. She startles when she remembers Old Lace is no longer in the Hostel and as the brief bliss of ignorance gifted to her by lack of sleep leaves her.  
  
She sighs as she puts the kettle on the stove.  
  
She’s far too young to sigh like she does, like an old woman weary of the years passed.  
  
Like a crone.  
  
She huffs a laugh at the thought- a little at her arrogance- and rubs her face, trying to get rid of the fatigue that has made itself home there, behind her eyelids. Another thing she’s too old for, she’s sure.  
  
She bends down in search of that fancy and expensive black tea she had managed to smuggle in the kitchen while nobody was looking- the only one who saw her was Karolina but she had managed to bribe her into silence with kisses, so her stash was still left intact behind the empty box of vegan chips nobody wanted to touch.  
  
The kettle’s whistle makes her jump, the sound reverberating through the hollow space as she takes it off the fire quickly. She has barely managed to pour herself a cup when a voice interrupts her.  
  
“What are you doing up? It’s late. Or early, depends on how you see it.”  
  
“I could ask the same of you,” she says, turning towards Karolina with a small smile.  
  
“I couldn’t fall back to sleep.”  
  
And it feels like a conversation they already had once upon another time when the words between them didn’t carry as much weight. They’re getting better, at the whole talking thing, but progress was as slow as Molly waking up in the morning.  
  
Maybe that is why Nico hesitates, before asking. “Is it-- Have you been having nightmares?”  
  
Karolina doesn’t look surprised by her question, merely resigned- or tired, the black circles beneath her eyes making her face gaunt in the moonlight, and for a second she wonders whether Karolina had slept at all that night.

“Not nightmares, not really. More like tainted dreams.”  
  
She thinks it’s the lack of sunlight that makes her brave, the dark that envelops them like a blanket and makes the whole situation seem more like a dream than the harsh reality that it actually is- or maybe the fact that Karolina looks like she finally feels ready to share- that makes Nico grab the only other mug they own and pour Karolina a cup, before asking.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
Karolina doesn’t answer her at first, busing herself with finding the clumpy mass they call sugar, and the small hotel milk containers. She watches as Karolina finally sits down, dumping an unholy amount of sugar and milk in her tea, and she smiles fondly.  
  
_I think I could love you until the day I die_, Nico thinks so loudly she’s afraid Karolina might hear her, and she bites her cheek in an effort not to blurt it out.

When Karolina tilts her head in question, Nico flicks a lump of sugar in her direction as if that had been her plan from the start. Karolina’s smile is worth the lump in her throat.  
  
Finally, Karolina shakes her head with a jerk. “Not really. Not right now.”  
  
Nico doesn’t let the smile slip off her face. “That’s okay.”  
  
“Is it?”  
  
“Karolina, I’m your girlfriend. I just want you to be happy.”  
  
“I thought you wanted to talk about it all. About Jonah,” Karolina whispers her father name in a short, terrified hush and Nico’s whole body burns in hatred for the monster.  
  
(She might have to kill him again, just for that. Only, she’s going to make sure he’s gone for good this time.)  
  
But that’s neither here nor there.  
  
She reaches for Karolina’s hand slowly, scooting her chair closer, wincing as the sound of it scraping on the pavement echoes against the walls.  
  
“I did. I do. But you shouldn’t do this for me,” Nico pauses, “I went at it all wrong, I guess. I didn’t know what you needed, I still don’t. I just think you should talk to someone about what happened, and it doesn’t have to be me, I just--”  
  
“What?”  
  
She wishes desperately for her make up then, for her layers and layers of black clothes, for everything she uses to make herself brave. But isn’t that unfair, too? To demand everything of Karolina while letting her see nothing of herself in return?  
  
(She wants to know everything about Karolina, but she also wants to share everything with her. No matter how terrifying the thought of it is.)  
  
“I remember how lonely it was after Amy, which is stupid because I was the one who shut you all out in the first place. But I remember how enticing it had felt. To let it all go to waste. To watch it burn. I don’t want for you to fall down the same rabbit hole.”  
  
“Oh,” Karolina’s eyes go wide, before looking into the teacup with intent, “You never told me that.”  
  
“Some things are better off unsaid,” Nico shrugs, sipping from her cup.  
  
Karolina’s eyes flash to meet hers in an instant, fierce and unyielding, glowing in the dark of the night- on second thought it’s all of Karolina that’s glowing, lighting the whole room in a flash of pinks and blues before turning off just as abruptly.  
  
“There’s nothing- _nothing-_ I don’t want to know about you. Don’t you _dare_ hide yourself away from me for my benefit.”  
  
That manages to stun Nico into silence.  
  
“You’re far from monstrous, and I wished you stopped seeing yourself that way,” Karolina continues, her skin glowing briefly again, betraying the disarray of her emotions, “I love you. All of you. No matter what.”  
  
Nico blinks slowly, she doesn’t know whether it’s the shock or to keep the tears at bay, she doesn’t know anything but the fact that she’s so in love with Karolina Dean, and Karolina Dean’s so in love with her in return.  
  
(Every time she thinks she couldn’t possibly fall even more in love with Karolina, she goes and proves her wrong.)  
  
She’s definitely not breathing, and god, if this is absolutely not the right time for her lungs to stop working. She takes a deep breath, but the words still don’t come to her, but she guesses that’s fine. She doesn’t need them to show how much she loves her.  
  
She lifts herself up from the chair slowly. She’s going to do something extremely cheesy. She walks over to the radio Chase had managed to put together from scraps of metal, turning around when Karolina doesn’t follow her.  
  
“C’ mon,” she urges her on.  
  
Karolina just watches her in silence with an honestly ridiculous face.  
  
She snorts and turns the dial, fidgeting with the stations for a second searching for the right song- something slow, and soft, and lovely. Karolina just keeps on watching her tinker with it until Nico nods, satisfied, turning to her again.  
  
“Dance with me,” she says, offering her hand, bowing slightly like she saw her father do when he used to dance with her mother all around the house when Amy was still...  
  
Karolina’s whole face is aflame, wide eyes looking at her like the sky on a cloudless day.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Why not?” she shrugs.  
  
She takes Karolina’s hand in hers, before bringing it to her lips, and she knows she’s got her.  
  
(The cheesiness of it all is worth it just for the smile that graces her lips the second she does so.)  
  
They start to move together, the music coming softly from the banged-up radio Chase had put together. She smiles when Karolina twirls her slowly, before crushing back together, two stars in orbit gravitating towards each other in an endless dance.  
  
She sighs happily when Karolina leans close until their foreheads are touching, until she can feel Karolina’s heartbeat drum against her chest, until they’re just two girls swaying slowly to a love song.  
  
She begins to sing softly along.  
  
“Baby, I’m yours, and I’ll be yours until the sun no longer shines.”  
  
It starts croaky at first, before the church choir she had thought she had left behind caught up with her. Then it comes out in a hushed tone. Private. Just for the two of them.

Their socks slip on the hardwood floor, but it becomes just another reason to hold on tighter.  
  
“Yours, until the poets run out of rhyme,” she brushes her nose against Karolina’s cheek, whispering the last verse in her ear, “In other words, until the end of time.”  
  
Karolina brushes some of her hair out of her face, softly tracing her cheekbones, then her jawline, Nico feels herself trembling against her touch as her thumb swipes gently against her bottom lip.

Karolina kisses her forehead, then her nose, then her eyes- left and right- before crushing her mouth down on hers. Her eyes flutter closed.  
  
(It steals her breath away.)  
  
As Karolina pulls away, Nico chases her lips in another short kiss, before sighing and letting her forehead fall down on Karolina’s shoulder, inhaling her sweet scent.  
  
“It was you,” Karolina says suddenly, quiet and quick like a secret told by a child who knew had misbehaved and was in trouble.  
  
“What?”  
  
Karolina continues as Nico hadn’t spoken, eyes empty.

“In the box. It was our room, our bed, my clothes on the floor and yours on the chair. And then it wasn’t. Like a fever dream. Everything was almost right and always off. Over and over and over. By the time you came to get me, I couldn’t… I almost couldn’t--”  
  
Karolina starts to pull away, but Nico doesn’t- can’t- let her, as she pushes closer, instead. “Baby…”  
  
“It was you saying you loved me. It was you saying you didn’t. It was Gert getting crushed, Alex getting taken, Molly being shot and not getting up. It was mostly the two of us, though. Xavin says the box shows you your deepest desires, so…” Karolina trails off, looking away from Nico, and Nico hums because she knows that- Chase had told her that already.  
  
She doesn’t know why Karolina looks so embarrassed by the fact, though.  
  
She lifts one eyebrow when Karolina doesn’t continue after a few seconds.  
  
“So. It showed me the two of us. Together, and… well, and--” Karolina blushes, a pretty pink spreading over her cheeks and… oh.  
  
Oh.  
  
“Oh,” Nico breathes out as soon as she gets what Karolina is implying, and she blushes in return.  
  
“Yeah,” Karolina says, still blushing, “That. Mostly. Or it was the quince, dancing together like this. Only I know we didn’t dance together before now. Not like this. Didn’t we?”  
  
“No,” Nico agrees- because what else can she do?- brushing her knuckles against her cheek, holding her in return, “But I wanted to.”  
  
“Me, too,” Karolina gives her a small, sad smile, “I wanted… I want everything, with you.”  
  
Nico is pretty sure there are unshed tears in her eyes. She can’t bring herself to care.  
  
“It must have been pretty tempting, in a way.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The box. It showed you want you wanted most, didn’t it? Your dreamworld.”  
  
Karolina hums in answer.  
  
“Is that… is that why you wouldn’t talk when you came back? Because it didn’t live up to your- to the box’s dreamscape?” Nico asks, voicing the fear that had been gnawing at her since Chase had let that little detail of their imprisonment slip through.  
  
“No. Nico. No,” Karolina says fervently, shaking her head in denials, “Of course not. It wasn’t anything you-- I was just so… so scared.”  
  
“Of what?”  
  
Karolina looks away, shrugging her shoulders. “That you’d run, once you knew how fucked up I am. That you didn’t want this as much as I do. I keep… I keep trying to bury it all down, but I can’t. And I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”  
  
“Karolina, you can tell me anything,” she brings her gaze back to hers.  
  
“Can I?”  
  
“I told you. You don’t scare me, you never could. What you said, about wanting to know everything about me? It goes both ways. I love all of you, too. And I want everything with you, too.”  
  
Karolina smiles, and Nico drops a soft kiss to her lips. They sway in silence for a while.  
  
“Is that why you were only talking to Xavin?” she asks, biting her lips the moment the question escapes her lips.  
  
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Karolina shakes her head, “I guess…. They know how that tech works, I thought that if I understood it better, I could somewhat--”  
  
“Control the effect it had on you? Yeah, I know the feeling.”  
  
“It was stupid. To keep it from you,” Karolina looks into her eyes, holding her gaze like a lifeline. “You said you didn’t know what I needed. It’s you. I just need you.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. I don’t need fake dreamworlds, or pretty words, or fancy dates. Only you.”  
  
Nico swallows, her throat feeling tighter than ever as she promises- “You have me. As long as you’ll want me.”  
  
Karolina’s answering smile is blinding. “How does forever sound?”  
  
“Perfect,” Nico whispers, lips a breath apart, “It sounds perfect.”  
  
The song fades out, the radio sputtering for another second before promptly dying.  
  
Nico almost wants to keep dancing, even without the music playing in the background. She just wants to stay close to Karolina for another moment before they have to come back to reality, before she has to go back to her couch bed in the middle of the hallway.  
  
Karolina seems to have different thoughts, though, gently bringing them to a halt. She kisses her once, deeply, gently, before taking her hand and leading her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. “C’mon, we deserve some proper sleep.”  
  
Nico follows her.  
  
What else can she do?  
  
(The Hostel isn’t so cold when she has Karolina warm and pressed against her.)  
  
**  
  
She’s standing in her room- _their_ room again, and that brings a smile to her lips, even if only for a moment- looking in the mirror much like how she’d caught Karolina doing that one time, so long ago.  
  
They had a lead. Finally.  
  
Molly had punched the information out of some dude on the streets. How she had found the right dude, Nico wasn’t sure. The one thing she’s sure of is that the information is good. She knows Molly wouldn’t have told them anything if she hadn’t gone and checked it out herself first.  
  
They had been kind of certain for a long time that Gert was somewhere between California and Mexico, and now they know where.  
  
It’s a good, honest to God legitimate lead.  
  
Then why was she shaking?  
  
She tries to steady her breathing, tries to ignore the pull she feels to the other side of the room where she had thrown her Staff.  
  
She knows why she’s shaking. She knows the power the Staff has over her actions. She knows why she doesn’t want to pick it up again. Not on a mission. Not to use against someone again. Not if she’s going to lose control again.  
  
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.  
  
She can do this.  
  
She’s strong enough.  
  
(She just needs another minute to remind herself she is.)  
  
She feels Karolina entering the room before she sees her through the reflection, before she hears her walk slowly towards her, approaching her like she would a wounded animal.  
  
“You escaped from that quite quickly,” Karolina says, attempting a smile, searching for her eyes in the mirror.  
  
This is the moment where Nico should smile. Where she should say some snarky, overconfident thing, and get over whatever feeling was making her grip the desk so tightly her fingernails press into the wood painfully.  
  
(She doesn’t dig them out.)  
  
She decides to be honest. Karolina deserved as much.  
  
“I don’t think I can be.”  
  
“Be what?”  
  
“Be the leader you want me to be,” she says, eyes finally meeting Karolina’s in the mirror.  
  
Karolina holds her gaze, eyes so unbearably kind Nico shivers under their stare. “I don’t want you to be anything other than what you already are.”  
  
“The leader you think I can be, then.”  
  
“I think you’re extraordinary.”  
  
“My powers aren’t mine,” Nico shakes her head, digs her fingernails some more, does not turn to look at the Staff calling to her, “I can’t-- I can’t depend on them like that. Not like you do.”  
  
“I didn’t mean your Staff,” Karolina says, seemingly reading her mind, and she inches closer until they’re standing shoulder to shoulder and Nico can feel Karolina’s warmth seep into her bones, “And I think you were born to be a leader, powers or no powers.”  
  
“Alex’s our leader,” she says, but it’s weak.  
  
“I think you were the reason we’ve made it this far. I think you would do anything- everything- to keep us safe,” Karolina says, her hand coming to rest on Nico’s, “I think that’s what a leader is supposed to be.”

“I’m not supposed to be the leader,” she says, turning to Karolina more fully and her face must betray the desperation she feels, because her girlfriend bends down to rest her forehead against hers.  
  
“When are we ever what we’re supposed to be?”  
  
“What if we--”  
  
“We will find Gert,” Karolina says, so full of certainty Nico almost believes her, “And nothing will go wrong.”  
  
She takes a step back and away from her. “You can’t know that.”  
  
“Everything will be fine,” Karolina says taking a step forward.  
  
“You can’t know that either.”  
  
“What if I promise?”  
  
Nico shakes her head again but buries her head in the spot where Karolina’s neck meets her shoulder, inhaling her scent. She feels the hot trail of a tear burn her cheek. She squeezes her eyes shut harder.  
  
“We love you, you know?” Karolina whispers against her hair.  
  
Nico takes in a shaky breath, the love she feels for Karolina quaking through her, piercing her insides, consuming any other rational thought that isn’t Karolina, Karolina, Karolina. It’s a syrupy feeling that coats her bones, that mellows her down until the whole world falls silent.  
  
“We?” she asks, coyly.  
  
“You know. Stop fishing,” Karolina admonishes light-heartily, smile in her voice curling the words with laughter, “But also everyone else.”  
  
“I don’t know. I love you,” she says, because she means it, oh so much, and because it’s still so new she’s achingly desperate to hear Karolina say it back.  
  
Karolina laughs, her chest vibrating against Nico’s. “Yes, you do.”  
  
“Tell me anyway?”  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
Soon, they’ll have to go downstairs, and Nico will have to face their friends and be the leader they needed. Soon, Nico will have to look them all in the eye and pretend she knows how to do this, pretend she’s not afraid, pretend she’s got everything figured out.  
  
Soon, but not now.  
  
For now, she can fall apart a bit and let Karolina hold her together. At least for now, she can pretend everything is just a bad dream, the Staff, her parents, Gert being M.I.A. Now, she can just be a girl in love with another girl, and that will be enough.  
  
(And she tells herself she’ll move in a few moments, but not before Karolina does.)  
  
**  
  
It’s almost a full three days later and Karolina finds her standing in front of the mirror again, this time adjusting carefully the straps that hold the Staff in place, fiddling with the buckles, trying to look more the part of the fearless leader than the scared girl she feels.  
  
Somehow, she doesn't think it's working quite well.  
  
Her stomach contorts painfully, as if she had eaten one of Chase’s weird protein shakes, or like it did when they couldn’t manage to find any good food in the trash and had to share one pizza between the six of them.  
  
Two hands stop hers, coming to a rest on them. “They’re fine. I'm sure they won’t fall off mid-fight.”  
  
“And if they do?”  
  
“I’ll light up so bright everyone will be distracted, and you won’t lose your reputation.”  
  
Nico barks out a laugh. “Thanks. Glad to know I have you on my side.”  
  
“Of course, always.”  
  
Karolina smiles and the butterflies in Nico’s stomach act up again, just for another reason. She looks away, can’t afford the distraction when they’re so close to leaving for the rescue mission, can’t afford to let Karolina see the truth in her eyes, or how scared she feels.  
  
Only Karolina doesn’t let her, bringing a hand under her chin and lifting her head up gently.  
  
(In her eyes, Nico feels sane, feels safe again.)  
  
“What if I can’t do this?”  
  
“You won’t be alone. We- I- got your back. You just lean on me when you can’t stand anymore. You just hold on.”  
  
She wants to shake her head, but Karolina’s eyes are unwavering against hers, two blue pools of the ocean, deep and limitless. “I can’t ask that of you.”  
  
“I thought we covered this already. I’ll be by your side, no matter what.”  
  
“Til death do us part?” she asks- half-joking, half-hoping.  
  
Karolina’s face completely drains of colour at that. It’d be pretty funny if it didn’t send such a spike of terror to her core.  
  
“What is it?” Nico prods, trying for light-hearted but probably coming off weird.  
  
“It kinda was like that. In the box.”  
  
“What? Did you, like, marry Xavin or something?” she teases lightly, expecting for Karolina to laugh. Only she doesn’t. Karolina _blushes_ before shaking her head no.  
  
“Worse?” her eyebrows shoot up, “God, was _I_ married to Xavin?”  
  
“Nico! No! Why would you be married to Xavin?”  
  
“I don’t know! It’s _your_ weird box induced dream.”  
  
“You weren’t married to Xavin. I wasn’t married to Xavin. Nobody was married to Xavin.”  
  
Poor Xavin.  
  
“Then what?”  
  
“You know… us?” Karolina says, voice lifting up an octave at the end like it usually did when she was embarrassed.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
The obvious answer.  
  
Right.  
  
Now Nico was the one blushing.  
  
She scratches the back of her neck, coughing a bit, trying to clear the weirdly excited lump she got stuck in her throat at the thought of Karolina and a white dress.  
  
“I wouldn’t… I guess I wouldn’t be opposed to that. In the future.”  
  
Karolina’s cheeks light up in pinks again, this time right down to her ears. “Oh. Good. Good to know.”  
  
She kinda really wants to kiss her now, only Karolina starts fidgeting, fingers tapping on Nico's arm in a pattern she doesn't recognize.  
  
“Anyway. I didn’t come here to propose,” Karolina says- and Nico laughs a bit too loud, a bit too much- “I wanted to… I… Here--”  
  
She hands her a small wooden disk, about the size of a silver dollar and twice as thick, there’s a hole at the top a dark brown leather cord passing through it, a rough silver clasp holding it all together. The disk is burnt on both sides, lines fading in and out in a more than familiar design that Nico recognizes in an instant.  
  
“This is the shield,” Nico traces the lines with a confused frown, “And this is Hecate’s wheel…”  
  
“Yeah,” Karolina smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes like it usually does. She’s nervous, Nico realizes, even if she can’t begin to guess why she is. “You like it?”  
  
“I-- yes.”  
  
“I thought you could use some protection. Like, in general. And I’ve heard you talk sometimes, about the Mother and the Maiden and the Crone and… I don’t know. I thought you’d like it. It was a stupid idea, wasn’t it? I overstepped. You don’t have to wear it,” Karolina makes as if she wants to take it back, and Nico hugs it to her chest quickly.  
  
“I love it,” Nico says immediately, truthfully, but she scrunches her nose still, “How do _you_ know about this stuff?”  
  
“I’ve done some research. It’s something you care about. I want to understand it, if even a little,” Karolina shrugs her shoulder like it’s no big deal, like she hadn’t painstakingly engraved the thick disk of wood in her hand, like she hadn’t cared enough to even consider doing it.  
  
Just to make Nico feel better.  
  
Just for _her._  
  
And that confuses her even more.  
  
“Why?”  
  
Karolina looks at her like she’s being dumb on purpose like it’s so blatantly obvious Nico must be playing some kind of practical joke on her. When she sees her confusion is real, her eyes turn unbelievably soft and kind.  
  
“Because I love you. And I’ve seen how stressed you’ve gotten lately, and I thought-- Wicca is something you care about, something familiar. I thought it’d help.”  
  
Nico doesn’t know how to answer that. She stands still, looking up at Karolina like a deer in headlights.  
  
(It is unbelievably unfair, Nico realizes in this moment, how a person so beautiful could also be so thoughtful, so wonderful, so captivating in every other way. She’s sure Karolina’s bending some universal law of balance just by existing.)  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing, I just--” Nico pauses biting her lip, because God she loves her so, so much it’s ridiculous and she had no idea that it was possible to fall even more in love with someone after you’re already there, and here is Karolina handing Nico more than anyone ever has and asking for nothing in return.  
  
“C’ mon, what?”  
  
“I’m just… so in love with you.”  
  
Karolina blushes then, shy under her eyes in a way she hasn’t been since that second kiss in the van. It’s cute. It makes Nico want to hold her until everything fell apart around them. She shakes the thought away.  
  
_Head in the game, Minoru, we have a friend to retrieve. No time to smooch your very cute girlfriend._  
  
“Put it on me?” she asks instead of doing something stupid, pushing her hair out of the way and turning her back to Karolina.  
  
A second, and then the disk falls to her chest, his weight comforting around her neck. Karolina closes the clasp, but her hands hover on the back of her neck, slide down to wrap around Nico’s mid-frame, dropping a kiss on her head before resting her forehead in the place in between her shoulder and her neck.  
  
“Everything will be fine,” Karolina says, and Nico feels her hot breath hitting her back in short puffs.  
  
(She had been so focused on herself she didn’t even check on Karolina, she realizes, her first mission since getting taken. She’ll beat herself up later.)  
  
“Everything will be fine,” she says back, like a mantra.  
  
“As long as you’re by my side.”  
  
Nico turns in her grasp, she has to look in her eyes, to say it. “As long as you’re by mine. We’re going to be alright.”  
  
And for once, she means it.  
  
(She wonders if that’s why everything went wrong.)  
  
**  
  
They find Gert.  
  
They find Gert and she’s all right, still standing, still purple-haired, still alive.  
  
(Still badass- punching Chase in the face the second she sees him. Nico may or may not high five her for that- on the sly, though, because she had officially forgiven Chase some days ago when they fixed the heating in the Hostel together.)  
  
They kick Dale’s ass effortlessly- he always was the least threatening out of all of their murderous parents, _easily,_ so much so Nico had almost forgotten he was part of the whole charade- and it’s easy.  
  
So easy, they didn’t see Jonah/Victor coming.  
  
(Which is rather poor planning on their part, if Nico’s being frank.)  
  
Jonah/Victor- Stacey and Tina, too.  
  
Tina Minoru.  
  
Her mother- the strictest one between her parents but still the one she laughed the hardest with. Her mother- the one who was supposed to keep her safe. Her mother- the one who had loved her, for how fucked up that love was.  
  
Her mother who wasn’t her mother- because she had said so, because she hadn’t been for a long time even before that, because she was the one who framed them for murder, who sent the drones, who killed Graciela.  
  
How can she reconcile the two into one body?  
  
(How can she still love her, somehow, deep down? How does that love go away?)  
  
Her mother who wasn’t her mother- because an alien resided under her skin, and that meant that she was truly, deeply gone, and Nico didn’t know how to reconcile that fact either.  
  
(And really how can they come back from this?)  
  
She doesn’t know. She just knows she doesn’t want to become anything like her, and she wants to ditch the Staff and take Karolina’s hand and run, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t.  
  
For now, she grips the Staff tighter. She doesn’t know if this Tina, too, has the ability to control it, but she won’t make the mistake of underestimating her. It’s still her mother, after all. She knows better.  
  
“Karolina,” Jonah/Victor greets her with a chilling smile, “How have you been?”  
  
“Since you kidnapped me?” Karolina crosses her arms over her chest, her lips pulling in a perfectly thoughtful pout, “I’d say better.”  
  
She swears she sees Jonah/Victor’s eye twitch from where she’s standing.  
  
(She’s so proud.)  
  
“Now, is that any way to talk to your father?”  
  
“You’re not my father.”  
  
“How did you even find us?” Nico finds herself asking, adjusting her stance to cover more of Karolina from his eyes. Karolina gives her a short unimpressed look before moving to stand to her side, perfectly aligned shoulder to shoulder.  
  
(And okay, that’s better.)  
  
“We’ve been tracking miss Yorkes,” Nico’s mom who’s not Nico’s mom in more than one way says, “My father was sure you wouldn’t abandon her.”  
  
_“Father?_ What the-- How did we not see that one coming?” she hears Alex hiss in a whisper to Chase.  
  
Chase shrugs his shoulders like _‘beats me’_ and Nico refrains the sudden and violent urge to slap them both.  
  
“Great. So now what,” Gert asks in a bored monotone, “You kill us all?”  
  
Jonah/Victor grins, and it’s somewhat far more disturbing than if he had snarled. “You shouldn’t have left the safety of your home.”  
  
(And okay, what's with their parents and having throwdowns in construction sites?)

“You shouldn’t have been a child-murdering cabròn, and yet here we are,” Molly says, eliciting a gasp from Chase and a chastising- if more than a little amused- ‘language’ from Gert.  
  
“Are these the kind of people you’ve decided to surround yourself with, my child?” Jonah/Victor tuts in Karolina’s direction, “They are a bad influence on you.”  
  
“Don’t call me your child,” Karolina says, voice clipped and sharp around the edges in a way it never is when she’s talking to any of them.  
  
(It’s kind of hot.)  
  
(She’s a _little_ bit ashamed about that thought.)  
  
“You should do well not to refuse your inheritance.”  
  
“Okay, I have to ask. Do you get all of your bad liners from bad sci-fi novels or something?” Gert snarks, shoulders dipping in her too-big leather jacket, “Like, is there a book? A college class you have to take?”  
  
Jonah/Victor sends a blast a little too close to Gert for Nico’s comfort, but Karolina is already there blasting him back. Old Lace roars from beside Gert and Nico steadies herself.  
  
She doesn’t want to use the Staff. She still brings it in front of her. Not-Tina smiles and walks towards her.  
  
Great.  
  
She wonders if Not-Tina has retained also her mother’s skills for fighting- she really doesn’t fancy another kick to the head so soon after the last. She brushes her fingers gently, quickly over the pendant, before correcting her stance.  
  
“Don’t make me do this,” she warns, but not-Tina just laughs.  
  
“That’s cute, that you think you have a chance.”  
  
Not-Tina glows bright red, Nico notes, but not even half as bright as Karolina, or Jonah when he was still Jonah, as if they were still weak after the transfer- as if the hosts were still fighting.  
  
(All this possession schtick is making Nico’s head hurt like a bitch.)  
  
Not-Stacey glows too, a pale yellowy-orange- she really, _really_ hopes it means they’re weaker- and Molly and Gert run to face her, Old Lace hot on their heels.  
  
Nico barely has the time to look at Chase and Alex charging Jonah/Victor with Karolina providing air support from the skies when Not-Tina sends a punch flying her way. She ducks out of the way, Staff flying to meet the place where her mother’s head was supposed to be, only to meet air. She follows the swing of her failed hit, swirling outside of Not-Tina’s range quickly.  
  
She twirls the Staff in her hands- just to show off, really- before dropping back into a defensive stance.  
  
“Not bad, for a human,” Not-Tina smirks and it makes Nico’s whole skin crawl.  
  
“Not bad, for a corpse stealing alien.”  
  
Nico takes great satisfaction in the way Not-Tina’s face turn red with rage- she doesn’t know if it’s because she hardly ever got to see her mother’s face so bothered, or if it’s just satisfying to taunt Karolina’s bratty half-sister.  
  
She lunges forward, the brass end of the staff colliding with Not-Tina’s shoulder with a very satisfying crack. She smirks, before kicking her mother’s knee in with enough force to send her to the ground. Not-Tina hardly looks bothered, though, as she grabs her leg and sends her flying.  
  
She falls on her shoulder, hard, before breaking into a roll.  
  
She hears someone shout her name, and she quickly stands up to give Molly a thumbs up.  
  
Not-Tina smiles, before sending a blast of light towards Molly, hitting her square in the gut. She snaps her attention back to the alien, anger clouding her senses. She feels the darkness start to spread, the voice she has come to associate with her Staff calling for blood.  
  
She takes a step back, forcing it back down.  
  
She doesn’t need it.

She brushes her fingers over the medallion once more, sending a quick prayer to whichever god would listen.

Not-Tina laughs, glowing a darker red than before. "Is that all you humans can do?"

“You tell me," she quips before bringing the Staff down on the ground, "Blast-from-the-Past.”  
  
Not-Tina flies back and into Not-Stacey, with enough force to send them both slamming to the floor.  
  
She barely has the time to smile at the move, when she sees Jonah blast Karolina out of the sky. And just like that, the darkness is back, feeding off the desperate need to save her girlfriend. She feels her eyes being coated in that creepy purple eyeshadow thing, her knuckles turning white from her tight grip around the Staff.  
  
“No!” she shouts, voice feeling alien to her own ears, as she breaks in a run towards her rapidly plummeting girlfriend, “Safe Landing!”  
  
Karolina crashes on a heap of white feathers and general fluff. She doesn’t stand up. Nico puts herself between her and Jonah.  
  
She turns to Jonah/Victor, her voice alien and dripping with poison and power. “Hellfire.”  
  
It’s more than a little satisfying, watching Chase’s abusive, piece of shit dad burst up in flames- even if it lasts just a few seconds before he stifles them out.  
  
(Still, his face was priceless.)  
  
She twirls her Staff in front of her, letting the power swirl through her and fill her veins.  
  
“Such a shame, really, that those brain scramblers were lost,” Jonah/Victor says, and it’s truly unsettling to see his cold smile in place on another’s face, “Guess I’ll have to deal with you in the traditional way.”  
  
She doesn’t wait for Jonah/Victor to make his move, zooming towards him and letting her Staff fly in a high arch directed at his head. He sidesteps her at the last minute, lashing a ray of light that hits her shoulder hard. She tries to follow the hit, but he doesn’t let her, punching her square in the jaw- and shit, that’s going to leave a mark.  
  
She brings her hand up, blocking his next punch and then headbutting him in the nose. She hears a satisfying crack, and then a flow of blood trickling down his face. She doesn’t waste time trying to land another clear hit, deciding to crack her Staff over his torso blindly.  
  
Jonah/Victor looks ready to blast her off the face of the earth, so she falls back, flipping away from his reach and checking the hits that he had landed.  
  
She risks a glance back to where Karolina had landed just as she pulls herself to her feet. Her glow seems to falter for a second, before it comes back in full force, bright as always. She shoots up like an arrow, and in seconds she’s standing beside her.  
  
“You had me worried for a second there,” she says, shoulder to shoulder and ready to punch her girlfriend’s father into oblivion.  
  
“Have I ever told you how hot you look when you go all purpley?”  
  
Nico’s pretty sure her eyes have gone back to normal just from sheer embarrassment.  
  
“What?” she squeaks out and Karolina’s lights brighten for a second like she’s blushing underneath them.  
  
“Sorry,” Karolina shakes her head with a grimace, “I’m pretty concussed and lacking a filter at the moment.”  
  
Nico is spared from having to think of a reply when Jonah sends a blast of light towards them. Karolina just smirks as she pulls up a shield of light.  
  
“And when did you learn how to do that?” she turns to her, surprise clear in her voice.  
  
“I have to keep some of my secrets, don’t I?” Karolina quips with a smile, “Otherwise you’ll get bored of me.”  
  
“Yeah, no, I don’t think that’s possible, babe.”  
  
It seems Jonah/Victor still doesn’t really like not being at the centre of attention, because he shouts as he flies towards them, fists glowing bright with power.  
  
She exchanges a glance with Karolina, before dropping to the right, as she flies towards him from the left. Karolina manages to get a hit to his side that unbalances him, but before Nico can throw him off completely, Jonah/Victor jumps into the air and flies at full speed at Nico.  
  
She vaults out of the way, pivoting on her Staff before yelling, “Fire-and-Blood.”  
  
A dragon sprouts from her Staff, crawling on the floor on its hind legs before breathing fire all over Karolina’s father. And shit, she’s never been gladder that Alex had made her read those nerdy books before now.  
  
The fire licks the ground, the smell of burnt asphalt and metal invading her nostrils. The dragon roars again, knocking Jonah/Victor off his feet with its tail before flying away, disappearing from the sky in seconds.  
  
(She really, really hopes this is one of her more temporary spells, and she hadn’t just released a_ fire-breathing dragon_ into L.A.’s skies.)  
  
“What’s with you and fire today?” Molly asks, launching a rock over her head and towards Not-Tina.  
  
“I felt inspired,” she shrugs.  
  
Karolina laughs from up above. “You’re just a huge nerd.”  
  
“Alex’s fault, really.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” Alex shouts, before ducking under one of Not-Stacey’s blasts.  
  
Jonah/Victor stands up, murder in his eyes. He launches himself at her, kicking her in the gut. She gets thrown a few feet away from Karolina, rolling on the ground and feeling her skin peel off her knees. Maybe, fighting in a skirt wasn’t the brightest of her decisions.  
  
“Nico!”  
  
“I’m fine!” she scrambles to her feet, using her Staff as a crutch, “All good.”  
  
“You are starting to become very annoying,” Jonah/Victor pulls a glowing orb of spinning light out of thin air.  
  
“We both know that trick isn’t going to work on me,” Karolina says, a shield of light already projected in front of her.  
  
“Maybe not on you, no,” Jonah/Victor replies offhand, before turning to Nico in a flash.  
  
The way Karolina’s eyes widen would be honest to god hilarious in any other situation.  
  
It takes only a second for Nico to catch up.  
  
It’s a second too late.  
  
“Nico!”  
  
She’s engulfed by light, but it’s not like Karolina’s.

No gentle pink hues, or warm pale purples, instead cold blue light and blinding white. It feels nothing like being wrapped in Karolina’s arms. It feels like being shot with a thousand little fires. like an atomic bomb made only of light.  
  
She doesn’t realize she’s flying through the air until she’s slammed full force into a wall. She doesn’t realize she’s screaming until she’s choking on her cry. She doesn’t realize there’s a metallic tube sticking out of her chest until she tries to move, and a blinding pain makes her vision blank.  
  
Well, that’s unfortunate.  
  
There’s another burst of light, this time from their side, but if it hits the target Nico doesn’t know. She’s too busy trying not to cough blood.  
  
Someone shouts her name again, but she can’t begin to try and answer them.  
  
In a second, Karolina falls to her knees, lifting her away from the trave and bringing her head into her lap, her light-show still up and engulfing them both with light. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare, Nico.”  
  
(She’s not sure if it’s the concussion talking, but Karolina looks like an angel.)  
  
“Hey,” Nico tries to say, voice coming out in a whisper. She coughs some more blood out of her lungs, tries again. “Hey. It’s fine. Karrie, it’s fine.”  
  
“It’s not. We said there was no leaving each other, remember? Don’t make me break my promise.”  
  
“You know,” she coughs out, swallowing a bit of what she thinks is blood- her blood, coating Karolina’s fingers and jeans, only Nico doesn’t know from where it comes from, if from her head or chest, she figures it doesn’t really matter- “I get it now. There _is_ something to this hero complex stuff.”  
  
“Nico, please don’t,” Karolina starts to frantically brush Nico’s hair out of her face, “Please. I promised. Please.”  
  
She stops her hand with a small smile. “Hey, it’s fine. I had to reach your quota of self-sacrifices, didn’t I?”  
  
“Not like this. Please. I promise I’ll never do it again. I swear. Just be okay. Please. Plea-”  
  
She lifts her hand to Karolina’s cheek, bringing it down to her lips one last time. It tastes like blood. It tastes wrong and right all at once. It tastes like the last of Nico’s love she can give.  
  
(People say everyone dies alone. Nico’s glad that isn’t her case.)  
  
“I love you,” she whispers, lips against lips, because she wants Karolina to know, she wants Karolina to keep feeling that even as she goes, she wants Karolina to keep on carrying that, “Remember that for me, will you? I love you.”  
  
It feels right, to die with Karolina’s taste still on her lips, a last ‘I love you’ to utter before the darkness.  
  
“Nico. No, please. I love you. Please.”  
  
Then Nico’s hand slips from her cheek, and she doesn’t hear anything else as everything fades to black.  
  
**  
  
Her father- her real one, the one who had brought her up and loved her, the one who betrayed her for the control of a religion, the one who was supposed to be _good-_ had taught her how to swim one hot summer day.  
  
(When does a father stop being a father?)  
  
He had been home from shooting and had declared that day the day she'd finally learn how to swim and dive like the big kids.  
  
She had been around seven, still young and smiling and so desperate to impress her _best friend_ Nico- even if she hadn't yet understood why exactly she wanted to- that she had said yes without a second thought.  
  
It had started kind of fun, playing around with her dad in the cool water while her mother- her real one, the one who had kissed her goodnight and hold her and taught her, the one who had lied to her about everything her whole life, the one who’s trying to be better now- watched from under the shade of the porch.  
  
(When does a mother stop being a mother?)  
  
Then her father had thrown her into the deep end.  
  
She remembers the day her father had taught her to swim, but she remembers the seconds before the impact best- how it had seemed so close to flying, how much it had scared her when the icy water slammed into her, how she had opened her mouth to scream before the water had crawled inside her mouth.  
  
Watching Nico fly through the air feels pretty close to that.  
  
Watching Nico bleeding out and closing her eyes with one last exhale feels like the moment after the impact- when she had swallowed the pool water in her mouth and had been certain, for one second, that she was going to die.  
  
Only this time there's no one around to save her.  
  
(Oh, when you outgrow them.)  
  
For a second, she can’t help but hope it’s just another messed up dream from the box.  
  
That it will all just another reboot and she’ll end up in a next loop, Nico alright and smiling and alive again in this new one. And she’d be fine with that, with being still trapped. She’d always be fine as long as Nico was, too.  
  
“No. No. No. Please. Please.”  
  
There’s a stream of words falling out of Karolina’s mouth. She doesn’t know how to stop them. She doesn't know how to do anything other than scream her plea.  
  
“This is not how it’s supposed to go. You give her back,” she shouts to the skies, and Karolina would be surprised at the fury behind her own words, beneath her voice, if she had the capacity of thinking about anything other than Nico laying limp in front of her. “You give her back right now. You hear me? Give her back!”  
  
“Karolina,” she feels a hand coming to rest on her shoulder. She scrolls it off.  
  
(It doesn’t reboot, and there’s so much blood.)  
  
“No. I refuse. I refuse to let it end like this.”  
  
Gert’s voice is soft but broken and Karolina doesn’t want to listen to it. “There’s nothing else to do.”  
  
(There’s so much blood.)  
  
She shakes her head, because Gert can’t, just can’t be right.  
  
(There’s so much _blood.)_  
  
“I don’t know how the story’s supposed to go, but this isn’t it. This can’t be it. Because if it is, then it means… that means--"  
  
If it does, it means it's all her fault. And her love can't be the reason Nico dies. It just can't.  
  
Because, if Karolina were to tell the truth, she’d have to admit she had grown up thinking that this kind of love that she feels for Nico, this feeling she has in her chest- the unconditional, always-there, feel-it-in-your-bones kind of love- wasn’t meant for the likes of her, that it was so fundamentally out of reach it wasn’t even worth hoping for.  
  
But she did get it.  
  
She did.  
  
With _Nico._  
  
And that had made it feel all that more miraculous.  
  
And look where that had gotten them.  
  
(Here was Nico turning cold on the pavement, and here was Karolina, watching helplessly as it all slipped from her hands.)  
  
It’s all her fault, and Nico’s the one paying the price.  
  
She cups Nico’s cheek in her hands, thumb swiping a smudge of dirt away. She presses her lips on hers for one last time. For a second, she almost lets herself believe Nico will open her beautiful brown eyes again.

Her eyes fall to the pendant she had given her, useless against her unmoving chest.  
  
Protection.  
  
What good did it bring them?  
  
Then, somehow, her prayer is listened to, and her hands shake as she witnesses a miracle.  
  
She feels a hand on her shoulder again, this time shaking her, urgent. She hears sirens in the background. “Karolina. Karolina, we have to go.”  
  
But she doesn’t care, because she feels it. It’s faint, and weak, and barely there, but it’s there.  
  
“There’s still a heartbeat.”  
  
“Karolina,” Molly tries this time, voice shaken by sobs, “You can’t--"  
  
“I can still fix this.”  
  
She turns her head frantically, finally locating Nico’s staff from where it had fallen.  
  
(From Nico’s empty, broken hands.)  
  
(She tries not to think about that either.)  
  
It’s still active. Kind of. It’s shut down, but it hasn’t shrunk down yet. She can still fix it.  
  
She doesn’t know how the Staff works exactly, but Nico makes it look easy enough.  
  
Just a word.  
  
She can still fix it.  
  
“I can still fix it,” she says again, fake confidence seeping into her voice.  
  
“Karolina,” Alex tries this time, “You know it only works for Ni--” his voice breaks around her name- but Karolina can't, she can't think of her name being broken, can't think of _Nico_ being broken- “For her. Please just--”  
  
That’s when the Staff comes alive in her hands, sparkling with power.  
  
She hears Alex gasps, but she’s too busy trying to think of a word, any word, that will work.  
  
Heal, maybe. Or revive. Or resurrection. Or anything other than dead, dead, dead.  
  
She doesn’t know what she’ll do if it doesn’t work. She doesn’t know anything behind the pull that brings her to her feet Staff in hand, the need of Nico being okay, being alive in her arms.  
  
A voice- eerie, disembodied, and just plain _wrong-_ whispers the right word in her ears, guides her arms bringing the Staff over Nico’s chest. She takes a deep breath, following the instinct to glow brighter and brighter.  
  
So no, her love can’t be the reason Nico’s dying.  
  
(She won’t let it.)  
  
“New Beginnings,” she says- orders- her voice so broken and far removed from any semblance of composure she almost recoils with shock. It doesn’t sound like her voice. It sounds like the voice that had whispered in her ears.  
  
(She’ll worry about that later.)  
  
The Staff glows bright, almost as bright as Karolina. The voice whispers to bring down the Staff on Nico’s chest. She follows its orders. The Staff keeps glowing as it slithers out of Karolina’s hands and into Nico’s chest, folding in on itself.  
  
The glowing stops.  
  
Nico's eyes stay closed.  
  
“No,” she drops to her knees beside her heart, “Nonononono, please. Please work. Come back. You have to. Please.”  
  
She cradles Nico in her lap, pressing her face to Nico’s chest, praying for a beat, for anything, to anyone.  
  
Then she hears a gasp of breath and Nico sits up, eyes wide open.  
  
**  
  
If Nico were to be honest, which she always was at least with herself, she’d admit she had never exactly seen herself fall for Karolina.  
  
It wasn’t something little Nico had ever envisioned.  
  
She may have thought a lot how Karolina was really, really pretty, like the prettiest girl little Nico had ever seen, but that was just a simple fact.

And maybe, she had also always thought that Karolina was really kind and good in a way not many people are, and that made her special. And maybe, she had always had a sort of soft spot for Karolina.  
  
Still, she had never thought she’d, like, end up with her. In truth, little Nico had always thought that she and Alex… He was her best friend, he was supposed to be her first love, too- but that had gone poorly.  
  
  
But, if Nico were to be honest, she’d have to admit she had never thought for a second- at least not out loud- that she’d ever be laying on a bed with Karolina, so intertwined in each other, Nico doesn’t quite know where she starts and Karolina ends.  
  
It seemed like the roles had been reversed once again, Karolina attentive by her side, and Nico catatonic still trying to process… it all.  
  
(She died.)  
  
She pushes the thought out of her head, holding tighter to her girlfriend's arms, fingers grasping her necklace, and trying to stay afloat.  
  
(She had died, and she had come back, and Karolina had been there waiting for her and her Staff was buried somewhere deep beneath her ribcage.)  
  
Karolina nuzzles her cheek against her head, dropping a kiss on her hair, loving as always, but the way her arms tighten around her midframe, the way she places her fingers over Nico’s steady heartbeat, speak loudly of the desperation that has tainted all of their interaction as of late.  
  
(She had felt the way it had slithered into her chest, like another soul nesting against her heart. And it’s still there, the void in between her heartbeats.)  
  
“I just realized we never went on a date,” Karolina says, tone light and airy but still hugging Nico so very tight, as if she could disappear into thin air if she’d let her go a second.  
  
Nico frowns, pulling back a little to look Karolina in the eyes. “Yes, we did.”  
  
“Yeah? When, then?”  
  
Nico opens her mouth, before closing it. Because Karolina is right. They never went on a date. How was that possible?  
  
“Molly’s quince? Or when we went to shop for it?” she tries with a wince, but she already knows they didn’t quite make the cut as dates.  
  
“That didn’t count, and you know it. We were even fighting during that.”  
  
“We were not! We were… friendly.”  
  
“We weren’t talking!”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“You just can’t accept the fact you haven’t brought me on a date yet. You’re hopelessly romantic like that,” Karolina teases her, leaving a small peck on the spot between her brows, and then her nose- and god, she might pass out if Karolina doesn’t quit it.  
  
“Don’t,” she scoots away a bit, playfully, “You’ll ruin my reputation.”  
  
“You’ve ruined it all by yourself, baby.”  
  
Nico’s lips fall into a pout, until Karolina kisses it away- softly and barely there.  
  
“I think I’m going to talk to my mother,” Karolina says all of the sudden, rushed out like if she thought twice about what she was saying, she wouldn’t say it.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. I figured… I don’t know. I still don’t trust her, still don’t forgive her, but she’s _here._ It has to count for something, right?”  
  
“I think only you can make that choice,” she brushes a hand over Karolina’s cheekbone, smoothing her frown gently, “I think sometimes we try to redeem the people we love, not just for them, but for ourselves too. And if that’s what you need…”  
  
“How can you be this…” Karolina trails off, shaking her head fondly.  
  
“This what?”  
  
“Nothing,” Karolina’s smile falters a bit before she continues, “And I guess-- I also wanted to say sorry.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“For lying to you about Jonah,” Karolina says, fingers fidgeting rapidly and out of rhythm against her other hand, “There are no excuses for what I did, I know, but I still--”  
  
Nico interrupts her, stilling her hands. “I’ve already forgiven you for that.”  
  
“But it still didn’t make it right. The more I think about it… God, Nico, I betrayed your trust.”  
  
“Does it make it better I knew you were lying?”  
  
“It makes it sorta worse,” Karolina chuckles without humour, taking back her hands and sitting up on the bed, “That I’m that bad of a liar.”  
  
Nico follows after her without hesitations, hands searching for hers without even realizing until they’re already in her lap. “Hey, you came clean in the end.”  
  
“It was too late. I’m sorry- it’s not an excuse, but I was lonely, after…” she sighs, before continuing, “I was lonely, and then I had you guys again. I had _you_ again and we became something more and I didn’t want to jeopardise that. And I lied. And I’m so sorry.”  
  
“You wanted to know more about yourself. I can understand why you did it.”  
  
Karolina shakes her head frantically, eyes filling with tears, standing up from the bed and away from Nico.  
  
(It breaks Nico’s heart in two.)  
  
“He’s a monster. I shouldn’t have gone to him for answers, I shouldn’t--“  
  
Nico grabs her arm swiftly, letting Karolina crash back into her arms. They fall on the bed together, and Nico holds her girlfriend as tight as she can. “Maybe, but you did. And I can’t fault you for wanting to know.”  
  
“You could fault me for not telling you, for falling for his crap.”  
  
“He’s a manipulative bastard and next time I see him, I’ll make sure it’s the last. _But_ that doesn’t mean you still have to carry all of this. That doesn’t mean you’re not forgiven. That doesn’t mean I don’t still love you.”  
  
Karolina blushes and looks away, hiding her face in the spot between Nico’s shoulder and her neck. She drops a kiss there, right on Nico’s pulse point, and it sends shivers down her back.  
  
“I envy you this, you know?”  
  
“Mhm?”  
  
“You have this… this capacity for forgiveness. I don’t know how to explain it, Nico, I just know it’s beautiful. You forgave Alex, and Chase, and me. Even if I didn’t deserve it,” Karolina lifts herself on her forearms and looks in her eyes then, and Nico can’t do anything other than stare back.  
  
“I don’t think you realize how good that is, how much you could hold over my head, and you’d be in the right,” Karolina says softly, almost to herself.  
  
“I can’t hold anything over your head, you’re too tall.”  
  
Karolina lets out a watery chuckle at that, slapping Nico’s shoulder gently.  
  
“I’m serious, though. You’re amazing.”  
  
“You’re better,” she says echoing Karolina’s own words, frowning as Karolina shakes her head, and Nico wishes that she could see herself the way Nico does, “I love you.”  
  
(No, Karolina may not be the light of the world, but she’s the stars that brighten Nico’s darkness.)  
  
“I must be difficult to love,” Karolina says, instead of saying it back, tears welling up in her eyes and leaning away from her, “One more thing to say sorry for.”  
  
And it fills her with a different kind of desperation. She grabs her face into her hands, brushing away some of the tears spilling on her cheeks. She wants to kiss them away. She doesn’t.  
  
“I know you feel guilty,” she says instead, because Karolina needs to hear it, “About what happened. Like it’s your fault somehow. It isn’t.”  
  
Karolina looks like she wants to deny it, but Nico stops her before she can. She sits up, hovering over her.  
  
“No, let me say this. I know you feel that way because I would too.”  
  
(Because she had felt that way. Every day Karolina had been in her father’s arms, she had blamed herself. And it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t productive, and it was awful. Karolina doesn’t deserve that.)  
  
“You _died,_ Nico,” Karolina says the words with a perfect void in her voice, “You died because of me.”  
  
“I got better,” she brings Karolina’s hand over her heart, letting her feel her own heart beating, “And because of Jonah.”  
  
Karolina shakes her head, taking her hand back. She looks at her like she disagrees, like she wants to bear the burden of Nico’s choices too on her shoulders, like she’s carrying her father’s sin with her.  
  
“Who only wanted to kill you because he knows how much it would hurt me. How much it did hurt me.”  
  
“That still doesn’t mean it’s your fault,” Nico says, taking Karolina’s hands in hers like an anchor, “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t put my life on the line for yours again and again and again. It was my choice to fight him, and for you, I could die a thousand times.”  
  
“You can’t say that. Please don’t say that,” Karolina’s face contorts with such fear it’s like a punch in Nico’s guts, “You can’t die for me, Nico. I don’t think I’d survive it.”  
  
Nico feels like laughing because isn’t this ironic? “Look at us, who’s the one with suicidal tendencies now?”  
  
Karolina does laugh, eyes shining with the last of her unshed tears. “We truly came full circle.”  
  
“Guess you’ve been rubbing off me,” she says, lips pulling in her best attempt at a seductive smirk.  
  
Karolina’s eyes widen scandalised, and she slaps her arm, too, for good measure. “Nico!”  
  
_“What?_ If you can do it, you can say it!”  
  
Karolina lets out another laugh. “You’re so bad.”  
  
“Haven’t you heard?” she leans into Karolina’s space, until her face is barely a quarter of an inch away, “I’m the big, bad witch. Hide your daughters.”  
  
Just as she’s about to close the gap Karolina leans away, a frown on her face.  
  
“Don’t say that.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re not the ‘big, bad witch’. You’re not your darkness, and I’m not my light. My powers, my light, it all comes from him. He’s my _father,_ and when you fell I would have killed him to bring you back. And I wouldn’t have felt a thing.”  
  
She blinks, taken aback. “Karolina…”  
  
“The Staff whispered in my ears, how to save you. And I don’t know if it’s good or bad, I just know it was the only thing that could bring you back, and for a moment I didn’t care for moralities. I didn’t care because I’m selfish and as long as you were fine, I would have burnt the world down,” Karolina takes her face into her hands, eyes burning into her soul, as a dark chuckle escapes her lips, “I would burn it all down for you. What does that say about me?”  
  
“So, you’re not the only one with darkness inside them. And maybe, we were always meant to be a little bit of both. I know you’re my light,” Karolina says, and Nico’s heart stutters in her chest painfully, her chest feeling too tight, “You’re my light. You’re my _love.”_  
  
And what else can Nico do, other than surge forward and kiss her? She feels the tears she hadn’t let herself shed, fall down her cheeks, but she wants to leave the sadness behind, so she keeps kissing her, and kissing her, until she has to stop to catch her breath.  
  
(They’re both a little broken, a little sharper around the edges, but they’re together. They’re together and that’s all that matters.)  
  
“I would, too,” Nico whispers against her lips, and she doesn’t let herself feel guilty, “To save you, I’d let it all burn.”  
  
“I know, and I--”  
  
Nico interrupts her with another kiss because she’s awfully tired of words and excuses.  
  
Here’s a good thing about dying, it gifts you with prospective.

And yes, Nico could sit here and talk about forgiveness and anger and unfairness, she could sit in her righteousness, but what was the point?

What was the point of making Karolina work for some far-off concept of right, when she knew who Karolina was, deep down?

Nico loves her and Karolina loves her back, isn’t that more than enough?

**

“I think fate didn’t deal us a good hand, in terms of parents," Karolina says, much later, drawing shapes on Nico's shoulder blades that make all of Nico tremble.  
  
Nico shrugs lightly, careful not to disturb the shape-making. “I don’t know about that.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Karolina says, fingers stilling.  
  
“Like, yeah, I'd do without all the murdering and kidnapping, but on the other hand... we’d never get together if it weren’t for them.”

Karolina drops a kiss to her shoulder, and it's obvious she's trying hard not to laugh at her pretty pathetic statement. “You think? I think we’d have gotten there somehow.”  
  
“Like soulmates or something?”  
  
Karolina shrugs.  
  
“Do you believe in them?” Nico asks, turning in Karolina's grasp to look her in the eyes.  
  
“In what?”  
  
“Soulmates.”  
  
“What else do you think we are?”  
  
The whole concept is honestly kind of ridiculous.  
  
And it’s a bit true, too.  
  
She feels more than a smidge silly at the thought, but it’s like she and Karolina were predestined in a way, the presence in Nico’s life a consequence of a thousand chances.  
  
(What if Jonah hadn’t landed on Earth, what if Jonah hadn’t met Karolina’s grandfather, what if Karolina had been born in another galaxy, betrothed to a prince of a nearby planet?)  
  
She looks into Karolina’s eyes, into the love of her life’s eyes- because she is, she is, she is- and Karolina’s right, because what else could they be, if not fated?  
  
“Why?" Karolina asks, "Don’t you?”  
  
“Yeah,” she hugs Karolina closer, burying her face into her neck, “I believe in them.”  
  
**  
  
She’s standing on the edge of sleep, when Karolina speaks again. They've turned again, Karolina's back pressed into Nico's front.

(Nico will never tell a living soul this, but sometimes she prefers it when it's Karolina doing the holding.)  
  
“You know… I really liked it.”  
  
“Liked what?” she says, stifling her yawn.  
  
“Dancing with you, I liked it. I wanted to ask you to prom, you know? I had it all planned out,” Karolina turns her head to smile sheepishly at her, “I-- god, it feels so stupid, now. It was when we still didn’t talk to each other, and I thought it’d be a good last chance, you know? And I wanted to ask you.”  
  
“You still could,” Nico says, even though she knows it’s not even in the realm of possibilities, things looking as they are right now.  
  
(Still, she wishes she could give it to her.)  
  
Karolina settles down again, snuggling back into Nico’s front. “It’s fine. I like where we’re at now. Despite--”  
  
The ending of the sentence hangs over them, both knowing the things the other, would not, could not voice.  
  
“Maybe one day you’ll get to ask,” Nico says- and just like that a plan starts forming in her mind.  
  
“Maybe,” Karolina hums noncommittally, “Still, all I need is you. I told you.”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“Love you, too,” she hears Karolina say back, before the sweet bliss of a dreamless sleep envelopes her.  
  
**  
  
Prom.  
  
Such a cheesy concept. Dresses and corsages, limos and shitty spiked punch, dancing and making out in the school bathroom. Or under the bleachers. Or in a hotel room after, enjoying each other skins like the first time all over again.  
  
Prom.  
  
Nico had never thought much about it, if she’s being honest. Once upon a time she had entertained the thought of a limo and taking pictures with a boy who looked like Alex, but even that was brief. An afterthought. Now it’s all she can think about.  
  
(Better to think about. Better than darkness, than helplessness, than death.)  
  
Prom.  
  
Nico never cared much for it, but she wanted to give it to her. The school gym and the shitty DJ and the even shittier people surrounding them. The flowers and their friends and the dancing until their feet hurt. She wanted to give it all to Karolina.  
  
And she said she didn’t need it, but she did want it, and that was enough in Nico’s books. She may not be able to offer the whole experience, but she can come close enough.  
  
(And, well. She had gone and died for the girl, so what is cheap balloons and taffeta?)  
  
So, she sneaks out and buys streamers and a tacky disco ball at the cheap bodega down the hill, finds the fairy lights they had bought for Molly’s quince and strings them all over their room while Karolina is on a food-searching run.  
  
She feels all kinds of ridiculous, balancing over a stool and a chair to reach the tree, the top of the ceiling, but she doesn’t care.  
  
She could use the Staff, she supposes, but that feels almost like cheating.  
  
(Also, she doesn’t know how to call for it, exactly. Which is probably what Alex would call a problem, and what Karolina would write down as a temporary setback. Nico mostly chooses to ignore the fact entirely until their next fight.)  
  
She wants to do it right.  
  
For Karolina.  
  
For the girl who brought her back.  
  
For the girl she loves.  
  
She changes into a midnight blue dress she had found buried in their closet and had then adjusted to fit her- the weirdness of wearing stranger’s clothes had faded by the third day they had found themselves homeless and, honestly, Nico is having fun sewing them to fit her tastes better.  
  
Then she sits on their bed and waits for Karolina to come back home.  
  
She doesn’t have to wait long, as less than twenty minutes later Karolina is stepping into their room carefully with a puzzled look on her face. “What’s all of this?”  
  
“Our first date.”  
  
“I’m sorry, our what?”  
  
“Prom,” she shrugs her shoulders, “I think I owe you a dance.”  
  
She lets herself enjoy Karolina’s adorably confused face, before elaborating further.  
  
(There’s no reason to be coy, and yet.)  
  
She sits up from the bed, smoothing her dress down as she does. “So, what do you say?”  
  
“What?” Karolina asks again.  
  
“I got the whole thing down. You just gotta go put a nice dress on. Or a suit,” she adds thoughtfully with a smirk, “I’m not going to complain.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“But you have to ask me,” she continues as if Karolina had not spoken at all.  
  
“What?”  
  
(Now, Nico is seriously worried she may have broken her.)  
  
“You said you had the asking down,” she explains slowly, teasingly, “Didn’t want to get all that planning to waste.”  
  
“Or you just never thought about how to ask me before,” Karolina says, finally seeming to recover.  
  
“I didn’t know you were an option until like two months ago, give me a break.”  
  
Karolina tilts her head with a barely-there smile. “And now?”  
  
“And now I know you’re the only option,” she shrugs again, biting her lips, “But you still gotta ask. And I want the whole promposal thing.”  
  
“The whole thing?”  
  
Karolina takes step after step, until she’s standing in front of Nico, until she’s so close she can feel her warmth without touching her, close enough Nico could count her freckles if she so wished. She angles her head up, looking in her eyes.  
  
“The whole thing,” she confirms.  
  
Karolina smiles, before closing the gap between their mouths. Nico sighs against her, her body warming up under Karolina’s touch. Kissing Karolina always feels like coming home- in all the best ways.  
  
Karolina’s brain must have been restored to full capacity, as she starts to back Nico down, until her back hits the door with a slam, knocking the wind out of her. Which is just fine by Nico, because it’s fun and more than a little hot when Karolina gets bossy.  
  
“So, you’re saying you won’t say yes if I just ask you like this?” Karolina husks against her lips. Nico’s whole being flushes.  
  
Be strong Nico.  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Karolina makes a clicking sound with her tongue, before slowly, gently kissing her thoroughly again. Nico might sue her for heart hazard inducing problems.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Uhm…”  
  
Karolina makes her slow descent on Nico’s neck, leaving a trail of hot, burning kisses along the slope of her jaw, the length of her neck. Nico’s moan is louder than she cares to admit. She slips one of her hands into Karolina’s hair, holding her in place.  
  
“What about now?” she asks in the sultry voice that made Nico’s knees feel weak and want to laugh at the same time, a reaction which she _knows_ Karolina think is hilarious, but is actually just a detriment on Nico’s life skills.  
  
Nico shakes her head with the last brain cells she has left. Karolina kisses her again and Nico sees stars.  
  
“Will you go to prom with me, Nico?”  
  
“Yes,” she rushes out, before pushing off the wall and pulling on Karolina’s jacket lapels, dragging her towards the bed.  
  
(Prom can wait a little while.)  
  
Karolina laughs, and it’s the only sound that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> so, i guess this is it. i have been working on this for far longer i'd care to admit, and i wanted to sent it out to the world before... you know... season 3 and the canon validation it'd bring.
> 
> i truly am sorry about the amount of angst and the whole nico slightly dying bit, but sometimes the need to angst manifests itself in my body and wants to be let out. nico got better though, so it's fine.
> 
> if any of yall wants to scream at me you can also find me on tumblr @somniatoressinespe 
> 
> as always, many tanks for any kudos and comments, they brighten my days.
> 
> cheers!


End file.
